The internal combustion engine has countless applications in industrialized societies around the world. In virtually all such engines, a fuel is mixed with air and drawn into a combustion chamber. The combustion chamber is sealed, permitting a piston to decrease the volume of the combustion chamber and compress the fuel air mixture. The ignition source, such as a spark plug or adiabatic heating of the air fuel mixture, ignites the fuel, resulting in a sudden increase in pressure, driving the piston in the opposite direction to increase the volume of the combustion chamber and provide a power output to drive an automobile or the like. The combusted gases must be driven from the combustion chamber to permit a fresh fuel air mixture to be drawn into the combustion chamber to continue the cycle.
Traditionally, the movement of the air fuel mixture into the combustion chamber, and the exhaust of the combusted gases, is achieved by carefully timed opening of an intake valve allowing flow of the air fuel mixture into the combustion chamber and an exhaust valve to permit the combusted gases to be exhausted from the combustion chamber. The valves are normally operated by rotating cam shafts having eccentric cam lobes to provide the proper valve opening and closing sequence. While the valve operating train contains a multitude of parts, and hampers the performance of the engine, it has found wide acceptance.
However, because of the ever growing concern for controlling the emission of harmful combustion products and the realization of the limits to the fossil fuels typically used in the internal combustion engine, there has arisen a need to provide for more efficient operation of the internal combustion engine to overcome the inherent disadvantages of the traditional cam shaft operated valve train. Efforts in this area have been made for many years, and include such examples as Porter U.S. Pat. No. 1,620,832, issued Mar. 15, 1927; Genet U.S. Pat. No. 2,745,395, issued May 15, 1956 and Cross U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,639, issued Sept. 19, 1978. However, no design alternative to the conventional cam shaft operated valves has achieved significant commercial viability. A need therefore exists for an improved valving system which increases the efficiency of the internal combustion engine and overcomes the disadvantages inherent in the conventional valving system.